


Ominous Sanctum

by dustlines



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Broken Castiel (Supernatural), Protective Dean Winchester, Purgatory, Season/Series 08, Team Free Purgatory (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21767083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustlines/pseuds/dustlines
Summary: Now that he's started noticing it, Dean wonders how long Cas has been falling apart, and he does his best to keep the angel on his feet.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	Ominous Sanctum

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Cas is back at his side, but Dean can't help wondering how much of his friend is actually there. He's started to worry that the angel trailing through the tar-black snow being kicked up by Dean's boots is just a worn-down vessel, haunted by a small portion of defeated Grace. Around them, Purgatory's weather has been impossible to predict, jumping from sweltering heat to the frozen tundra it is now, but Cas doesn't seem to have noticed. To be fair, Cas rarely seems bothered by weather, but there's something about him that makes Dean think he may now be vulnerable to things that had never before affected him, and it makes Dean feel a need to protect him.  
  
The angel's gaze lingers over Purgatory's dark and icy landscape as though his attention is a drifting fog, settling into frozen trees and the intermittent bellows of far-off monsters, treating life-threatening situations and the harmless as equal in his eyes. It'd taken another argument just to get Cas to belt up his coat, the angel acting like he wouldn't care if he froze to death in the black snowflakes steadily accumulating underfoot, and Dean, in frustration, had gone to lead the front of their group to calm himself down. This had left Benny to stare awkwardly between them both before stepping to Cas' side to keep the pace. Dean hears them talking every so often, their conversations stilted: Cas still angry and Benny still annoyed. They're a mess all around.  
  
"So what's Heaven look like, if you don't mind my askin'?" Dean hears Benny asking, and Dean guesses the vampire's still trying to get a sense of this strange, otherworldly being whom he can't convince Dean to shake off their shoulders, despite the danger Cas puts them all in just through being alive. Dean acts like he's unaware of it, but he knows Cas is a lightning rod for monsters. The difference is that, unlike Benny, he just doesn't care.  
  
Benny continues, gamely, "Is it true angels like harps, clouds, that whole deal? Like in the kids' picture books?"  
  
Walking at the front of their miserable, shivering little group, Dean thinks he can feel the daggers of Cas' eyes settling between his aching shoulder blades, begging Dean to spare him from this conversation. Feigning ignorance of Cas' dilemma, Dean does not look back, deciding it's more important to concentrate on the slippery snow and mud that's soaking through the holes in his shoes. Purgatory's sky above is greying, impossible clouds made of ice and black dust turning light into darkness, and soon the red-eyed beasts will appear, shrieking with their long-fingered claws and creeping around in what is already dangerous weather. Dean wants to find safety before that happens.  
  
"Heaven's not what you might think it is." Castiel sighs, long-suffering. Though Dean doesn't turn around, he can imagine the fog flowing from Cas' lips as he realizes Dean is not going to save him from basic small talk with an individual Cas has not proven fond of, only barely tolerant. "There are certainly no harps. What little music we produce is capable of shattering skulls, and used most frequently in times of war to destroy our enemies. This would hardly be suitable to depict in a child's picture book."  
  
Benny whistles, long and low, and Dean feels his jaw twitch with an impending smile that he has to fight to put away. He has noticed Castiel's strange affinity for saying shocking things around the vampire, though Benny never seems swayed into silence, as Dean suspects has been Castiel's goal. It's almost funny, Dean having come to imagine the two as a kind of Spock and McCoy, following him around while bickering endlessly. Though Benny clearly doesn't make Cas _happy_ , Dean's still glad he's not the only one trying to pull Cas out of his head, where the shadows have started to settle in.  
  
"Well, damn, feathers," Benny says, with a lilting chuckle, "that's something else. I guess you're not too keen on singing lullabies, then." He grunts, something breaking under his foot with a hollow crunch. Dean turns around just long enough to see Benny shake off the frozen bark of a tree stump, but no one is harmed, so he looks back to the front of the group. "Hey," Benny adds, with a lilting chuckle, "you ever crush any heads with your angel song?"  
  
Cas does not respond, and Dean winces at the front of the group. Benny makes a confused noise, the beginning of a word on his tongue as Cas cuts him off.  
  
"I won't discuss this." It's a warning shot, and one Dean turns around to catch the fallout for.  
  
Stopped also, Benny huddles with his hands deep in his pockets and looks stricken in the smoke-scented, black snowfall. "Hey, man," he says, guilty, "you and me don't really mix, but I didn't mean any—"  
  
Cas inhales, puffing up his shoulders and glaring at Benny. Cas' face is streaked with gray lines that have melted on him from the dark snow he has not bothered to wipe away, and his clothes are similarly stained. Dean is about to jump between Benny and Cas, a routine he's already sick of, even though they've only been all together for all of two days, but Cas only narrows his eyes and then speaks.  
  
"I have killed more people than you have ever even known." Cas' voice rings so deep it embeds itself in the air, vibrating like an impending storm. Suddenly, the streaks of melted snow on him look more like war paint around the paleness of his eyes. "I have caused destruction on untold levels, torn asunder structures that have remained in place for millennia, and the king of Hell himself knows to be cautious around me." Cas spits the words out like they are burning coals on his tongue, and then clenches his fists, his eyes cold like the edge of a knife. "And you inquire as to whether or not I _sing_."  
  
"Alright, enough," Dean tries to interrupt before things get much worse, but Benny just laughs, claps a hand on Castiel's shoulder, and then shuffles away from him, moving beyond Dean to the front of their shivering, smelly little group.  
  
"Brother," Benny says, with a shake of his head, "this guy is something else. This isn't my fight, though, whatever it is, so I'm gonna leave you to it."  
  
Castiel looks down at his shoulder as if he doesn't understand why he has been touched after having confessed so many sins and he is angry about it. Where Benny's hand had been, the snow is crushed, a black sort of blood seeping into Cas' shoulder that sends Dean's heart lurching into his throat. When Cas realizes Dean is watching him, he locks eyes with him. There is something jagged and sharp in his gaze that leaves a nervous chill in Dean's stomach, but then Cas' gaze drops and his shoulders sag, taking away the ferocious image of an avenging angel and leaving behind a sad, broken man in his place.  
  
"Dean," Cas says, pleadingly, but will not look up. Whatever he was about to say, he doesn't, and as he looks away, his throat flexes with a heaving swallow.  
  
"Hey," Dean takes a step towards Cas, and then another when Cas doesn't resist. It's like approaching a wild animal, and it makes Dean nervous. A snowflake lands on Dean's tongue and he nearly gags, a toxic flavor swelling in his mouth until he spits it out. The gagging pulls Cas' gaze back, but he still look listless, hair full of what looks like a damp, melting black smoke. "Cas," Dean says, for what feels like the millionth time. He gestures with his hand. "I need you to keep walking. One step at a time; I know you can do it."  
  
"Dean," Castiel's voice is a rumble of what might be anger, though if it is, it is deflated and weary. "Why should I? You continue to insist this arrangement is ideal, and yet we are constantly being pursued, the Leviathans have my scent, and I am not by any means at full—"  
  
"Cas." Dean keeps his voice low, and Cas goes silent to hear him. "I won't leave you behind. End of story."  
  
Cas' lip twists, a huff of gray air blowing from his lips. Purgatory's pale sky reflects on his skin, a cold, white haze seeming to blend into his body, making him stand out against the black snow on the ground and the trees. "I could get you killed."  
  
"Yeah, you could, and so could a low-lying root on a steep hill. A lot of things could happen, and we'll deal with them if they do. Right now, I just need you to keep moving forward." To emphasize the point, he grips Cas' upper arm and feels an overwhelming heat bleeding through the tattered fabric of Cas' coat, as though Cas' Grace is warming the surface of his skin closer than normal. It's impossible for Cas's human vessel to be producing that much heat, especially in weather like this. "Come on." Cas is digging in his heels, an iron bar embedded deep in the frozen ground. Dean yanks, before the panic can set in. "Cas, move!"  
  
Like a boat freed from a sandbar and scraping into deep, empty water again, Cas' body allows the tugging of Dean's arm. "Dean." His voice is a growl, barely human. It echoes through Dean's skin, raising the hairs on his arms and making his eardrums throb to hear it.  
  
"And fix your Grace!" Dean snaps, while dragging Cas through the inky snow still falling all around them. "You feel like you're coming apart under my hand!"  
  
Cas does not respond verbally, but his silence is its own kind of answer, and not of the comforting variety. Gradually, Dean feels the heat die down in his palm, and when he glances back, Cas is again looking down the icy mountain path they've just climbed up, as though he is trying to find the river Dean pulled him away from. Though Cas is moving under his own strength now, and though Benny is strolling ahead and could look back at them at any moment, Dean feels shaken enough to forget his anger and risk giving Cas a secret, reassuring smile, which Castiel resolutely refuses to look at, even after glimpsing Dean's expression out of the corner of his eye.  
  
Feeling bruised, Dean's smile melts away, replaced by the hollow pain of nervousness in his gut. He keeps his hand tight around Cas' upper arm, crushing yet more black snow even deeper into Cas' skin. He knows holding onto anything that's not a weapon is dangerous, since it leaves his hands occupied when Dean could be prepared to fight instead, but he finds he doesn't really care. Dean is quite sure Benny notices them after a while, but he doesn't call them out, only keeps chugging along at the head of their group, a pillar of solidarity when the world is unsteady, creating gray footsteps for them to walk in as he goes.  
  
Holding Cas with a shaking hand, Dean feels like his friend is slipping away. Even as snow soaks into Dean's collar and slides down his back, Castiel's lack of care with his own vessel and the powerful heat that lack of care brings is no comfort, and Castiel's fading presence sits as a dull ache in Dean's chest.  
  
After a while, Dean stops being able to tell if it's only the cold that's making him shiver. He hopes he can make things better when he and Cas get out of Purgatory, but there is a quiet, dangerous fear creeping into him, which Dean tells himself must be unfounded.

After all, if Cas is still letting Dean cling to him and make him keep moving forward, then Cas will be all right. Dean can make sure of it. He's good at taking care of people, and of saving them... even when they don't want to be saved...  
  
If Dean can't rely on anything else, well, at least he can still be sure of that.  
  
.

2013.6.29

[.](https://dustlines.livejournal.com/24142.html)

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